


Anon

by OddityBoddity



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Tumblr, anons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:01:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3721303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OddityBoddity/pseuds/OddityBoddity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted at <a href="http://headcanonsattheendoftheline.tumblr.com">this tumblr</a>, where all one's angst and sorrow Stucky needs can be met.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Anon

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [this tumblr](http://headcanonsattheendoftheline.tumblr.com), where all one's angst and sorrow Stucky needs can be met.

Steve's all about the internet, loves the internet, has a tumblr, interacts with fans, etc. Good press for SHIELD back when SHIELD was a thing, and he keeps it up when the Avengers happen, because it's good for them too.  


Steve starts getting messages after DC from an anon. The messages say things like, "You're a fake, you're not really him". Always the same IP.

Steve gets angry because he's tired, and he's looking for Bucky, and he can't make any headway so, yeah, he maybe slams his account with a bunch of personal stuff, like stuff about the kids down the street with polio (one didn't recover, one did but with a bad leg) and selling junk to the rag-and-bone-man and how when he was a kid you could (and did) keep chickens on the back stoop, and just proving he really is who he says he is.

So the messages from the anon start to be like, _Anybody could find out that stuff_ , and Steve's like, "Let me tell you some of the things people don't talk about." He talks about the two "confirmed bachelors" who lived in the apartment across the hall. He talks about how important a photo booth was to him because it was the first time he ever got a picture of him and Bucky together and it was the only one he had before the war, and, PS if anyone knows if those photos still exist, he'd really like them back. They mean a lot to him.

The anon messages him again: _Did we really go to Coney island?_

When he gets the message his heart stops. It's an anon message, so he can't reply directly, but he doesn't want this to be public. Instead, he writes a one-word post as his answer.

_Yes._

The anon asks:  _And a Dodgers game?_

He posts: _No. We talked a lot about it, but we could never have afforded it._

People start reblogging his answers and speculating what they mean. Are they poetry? Therapeutic exercises? Is Captain America cracking up?

The next anon message comes twelve hours later: _Why didn't you come look for me?_

He posts the answer: _The height, the speed, the mission._

That gets a ton of reblogs, as people speculate what it means. Contender for most accepted theory is "therapeutic poetry"

The anon doesn't return. He waits for hours, then days. At last he posts: _I couldn't stand it. I was afraid of seeing it. I was a coward._

Tumblr goes nuts, the media picks it up. Someone hacks Steve's account and finds the messages and leaks screenshots of them. People speculate on tv and radio and on line. Theory after theory after theory.

There are a lot of anon messages after that, baiting, goading. Some of them saying "I forgive you" and some of them saying "you left me to die". More of the messages are vicious than not, some of the gleefully so. They're all from different IPs. Steve posts about it, and turns off anon for a while, till things die down. 

He feels like he's broken something delicate, and he can't help feeling that nothing will ever bring it back. He retreats into himself, and if it wasn't for Clint and Sam, he'd probably stop eating too, but they make him host a twice-weekly movie night and bring food they know he’ll eat (always leaving the leftovers), so that's how those long weeks pass. 

It's three months later when there's a message in his inbox that says, _6:50 pm, where I left you._

Steve considers the suit, but in the end he wears the modern uniform of jeans and shirt and the leather jacket he loves so much. He brings the shield too, because it's a part of him, and because this could be a trap. But he goes alone, and waits on the bank of the Potomac. 

It's getting dark when Bucky steps out of the woods. Steve holds his breath. At first, he can't really see Bucky, but it's him, it has to be. Size and shape are right, and the hunch of his posture, and the slight mismatch in the height of his shoulders. All of it. As Bucky gets closer, Steve can see it's him, wearing a canvas jacket with the collar turned up, and a ball cap that keeps the long hair out of his eyes. Like the security images from the Smithsonian.

They both stand silent, together, and watch the river roll by.

"I hear the Dodgers are gone," Bucky says very quietly.

"Yeah," Steve answers. "Lots has changed."

Bucky nods. It's quiet, just the sound of the river, and traffic, and the birds in the twilight. 

"You okay?" Bucky asks.

Steve looks over at him. He wants to say, _Why are you worrying about me?_ or, _Jeeze, Buck, charity begins at home_. Instead he says, "Better now."

Bucky looks back at the water and nods. "Me too," he says.


End file.
